Results 8,561-8,580 of 18,729 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Irish Prison Service. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: ——on the basis of committals and releases which are difficult to defend. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has visited this country and will examine this problem.

Irish Prison Service. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: My Department is in urgent consultation with the Central Mental Hospital about these matters. The director general of the Prison Service will go to the Central Mental Hospital on Thursday to see what the problems are and how they can be overcome.

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: In 2002, the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, established the Office of Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention on a non-statutory basis. In 2005, I examined the possibility of providing a statutory basis for the office by means of a statutory instrument, namely, to provide for the office in the prison rules which are at an advanced stage of...

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: The Prisons Bill is before the Seanad and if the Deputy consults the proceedings of that House, he can confirm that. The decision was made in July this year to provide in that Bill for a statutory basis for the inspector's job. The amendments will be put down shortly in the Seanad and the Deputy will have an opportunity to debate them in this House and in the justice committee before...

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: ——or that he is in any sense circumscribed——

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: I am trying to answer the Deputy's priority question. I will deal with Deputy Howlin later.

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: I defy anybody to claim the inspector is not independent. The Deputy made a throw-away remark that the staff of the Garda Ombudsman Commission are not independent. That is wholly untrue. They are not seconded members of the Garda Síochána. The commission is currently recruiting its staff and it is not, in any sense, lacking independence. It is just as independent as Nuala O'Loan is in...

Inspector of Prisons. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: It was not a question of me vetting the report but of me reading it and seeing a number of passages in it which I concluded might be defamatory. I submitted them to counsel to decide whether they were publishable by me without risk of me being sued. I was advised by counsel and the Attorney General that I could not publish the report in the form in which it was. I asked that the passages...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: On 28 September 2006 there were 3,158 persons in prison custody as compared with a bed capacity of 3,383. This represents an occupancy level of 93%. It is my view, supported by these figures, that there is no overcrowding crisis or immediate issue relating to the capacity of the prison system. There is, however, a need to upgrade existing prison accommodation and to plan for the future and...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: On the Deputy's first question, I do not know if he was having a quiet snooze but I dealt with the deaths and weapons in Mountjoy and all the issues approximately five minutes ago. I would like to make a couple of points about Thornton Hall. The Deputy will be aware that the Committee of Public Accounts will examine that issue this month. I am confident the Accounting Officer of my...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: Second, nobody is in a position to point to any land suitable for a prison at that distance from or nearer to the city of Dublin which has sold or changed hands for a lesser price. Third, the Comptroller and Auditor General did not say €15 million was wasted. He said — let us be clear about it — that if I had agreed to secretly buy the land and not disclose the purpose for which I was...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: That is what he said. The Deputy will appreciate that what happened was that the Accounting Officer of my Department came to the conclusion that it would be ethically wrong to send people out to farms that became available without having a fully transparent, advertised process seeking appropriate land for the purpose.

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: All of these matters will be thrashed out before the Committee of Public Accounts. I am confident that the decisions made by the committee in question, which was composed of senior public servants, including one of the commissioners of the Office of Public Works, on the basis of an approach which was devised by the Accounting Officer of my Department, will stand up to any scrutiny. I again...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: What I would say to the Deputy——

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: No land which was suitable for a prison was sold for the prices in question closer to or the same distance from the city of Dublin. The second matter about which I remind Deputy O'Keeffe relates to his own auctioneering tendencies. It is interesting to note that in July 2005 he stated that five acres of the Thornton Hall farm which was kept back by the vendor was worth €1 million per acre...

Prison Accommodation. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy is awake now. It is a curious fact that he thinks five acres out of the 160 acres of the original land parcel were worth €5 million when two minutes ago he stated——

Prison Building Programme. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: The issue of the acquisition of a prison site at Thornton Hall was included in the 2005 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General at the request of the Committee of Public Accounts and will be examined by it in October. The relevant officials from my Department will be present to account in detail to the Committee of Public Accounts on all the issues raised by the Comptroller and Auditor...

Prison Building Programme. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: I reject the suggestions that this was a dodgy deal and stinks in any way and that the committee, comprising senior public servants, acted improperly. It is unworthy to suggest that about them without knowing any of the basic facts. This acquisition will be fully investigated by the Committee of Public Accounts. The Accounting Officer and Secretary General of my Department, the director...

Prison Building Programme. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: That is further from Dublin.

Prison Building Programme. (3 Oct 2006)

Michael McDowell: No.